I think one of the hardest things in trading is how quickly confidence can disappear. You can go through a stretch where nothing works, get stopped out a few times in a row, miss the one move that actually runs, and suddenly you start hesitating on setups you would normally take without thinking twice. The problem is that once confidence gets hit, it starts changing your behavior. You size smaller when you should size normally, you pass on good trades, you enter late, you manage differently... and then even when your edge starts working again, you’re not really there to take advantage of it. For me, the big realization over time has been that confidence can’t come only from recent results. If it does, you’re always going to be mentally chasing your own P&L. Confidence has to come from knowing your process, knowing what your edge looks like, understanding that losing streaks are part of the game, and knowing that you’ve been through this before. That doesn’t mean being blindly confident or ignoring when something is actually wrong. It means not letting a bad stretch convince you that you suddenly forgot how to trade. I think a lot of traders lose their edge mentally before they ever lose it technically.

Growth stocks started to outperform Value stocks last week after a long basing period that began at the July 29th FOMC. Can this new uptrend attempt confirm, and will we see a breadth expansion in growth stocks from here? Please!!! Let's put 2026 behind now; we had enough, right ;)

Don't Let Recent Losses Vote on the Next Trade Trading is hard — the last few days reminded us of that. Nothing was really working, and it stings a bit. That part never fully goes away. But with time, you learn not to take those losses personally or carry them into the next decision. Here's the thing: when the longer-term uptrend is confirmed, the market doesn't wait for your P&L to feel better before offering the next setup. Support reclaims, oversold flushes, leaders backtesting the 21dma — they show up when they show up. Yes, protect capital. But protecting capital and executing your edge aren't opposites. Last week doesn't get a vote on the trade in front of you. Read the structure, trust the framework, and execute.